Rikku and the Mutants
by theweirdperson
Summary: Rikku finds yet another mysterious book. As you can expect, chaos ensues. Another oneshot in the Rikku and Books series.


Rikku, once again, was bored.

Although the Sphere Break players in Luca seemed to have recovered from their simultaneous illnesses, Rikku had been exceedingly annoyed when she'd discovered that Brother had taken all of her Sphere Break coins and sold them in order to get a new paint job for the airship. Frankly, Rikku couldn't tell the difference, but Brother insisted that the colors had been fading and the paint was starting to chip.

Then, she had lost every last one of her credits gambling at the Calm Lands.

"Those games are totally rigged," Rikku muttered angrily, tromping through Macalania Woods. Something conspicuously non-shiny suddenly caught her eye.

It appeared to be a book, caught in the branches of a tree.

Rikku extracted it and read the cover. "X-Men... I wonder what an X-Man is?"

She started to skip back to the airship.

---

"Hi!" she said cheerily to Yuna, Tidus, and Paine, who were all playing an exiting game of Old Maid. "I found the strangest thing in Macalania Woods!"

The trio stared in horror at the item which Rikku held. Before they could say anything, she had traipsed into the lift.

"Well, at least it's a small book," said Tidus.

"Still, I'm worried," Yuna replied.

"And reasonably so, considering Rikku's past experience with books," Paine added. "Last time, she stole all the ring accessories and ran off to hide in the Cavern of the Stolen Fayth. The time before that, she started talking strangely. Who knows, maybe this time she'll start shooting lasers out of her eyes."

---

"No! Don't do it!" she yelled at the drawings. "That isn't Jean! It's just a cleverly crafted illusion..."

Unfortunately, the characters never seemed to listen to her, and Cyclops was just about to walk off a cliff when the real Jean Grey showed up.

Of course, this lead to a Battle of Epic Proportions. Battles of Epic Proportions are rampant in such books.

---

"Aw... I lost again," said Tidus.

"Hey, it's been a while since Rikku went into the cabin with her book..." said Yuna, her voice tinged with worry.

"You want to go check on her?" Paine asked.

"Well... all right," said Yuna. She rose and turned towards the lift. She'd barely taken a step before the lift door opened to reveal Rikku, who was wearing a pair of sunglasses.

"See," Tidus whispered to Paine. "She's not shooting lasers or anything. She's just wearing sunglasses indoors. There's nothing wrong with that..."

"Rikku..." Yuna began, "why are you wearing sunglasses?"

"Oh, because if I don't, lasers will come shooting out of my eyes," Yuna's cousin replied.

"See," Paine whispered to Tidus, "I told you."

"Well, next time could you say something more along the lines of, 'Maybe this time she'll make gil fall from the sky'?" Tidus requested.

"Rikku, maybe we ought to..." Yuna started, only to be inturrupted by Rikku's panicked cry, "Run! It's taking control!"

"What's taking..." Yuna was again inturrupted by an unearthly shriek. Flames surrounded Rikku, shaping themselves into the shape of a fiery bird...

Paine, thinking fast, switched dresspheres to Black Mage and cast Waterga on Rikku, leaving her drenched and steaming.

"Hey! That's not supposed to happen!" Rikku said, half irate, half relieved that she wouldn't be going off destroying galaxies.

"Well, it just did," Paine retorted, switching back to Warrior.

"Rikku..." Yuna tried once more at finishing a sentence. Unfortunately, Rikku chose that moment to sprout wings.

"Oooh, fluffy!" the hyper Al Bhed girl squealed, preening (literally) a little.

Paine rolled her eyes. "Rikku, do you mind telling us what's happening?"

Rikku paused. "Um... guys... I'm a mutant."

"A what?" Paine, Tidus, and Yuna said together.

"A mutant. I've got the X-gene."

"You've got the what?" the trio said simultaneously.

"So it's probably best that I go to the Xavier School for the Gifted and join the X-Men."

"The who?" the three asked at the same time.

"Triple jinx!" Tidus cried. "Ha! Now neither of you can talk until someone says your name one hundred times!"

Paine put a hand meaningfully on the hilt of her sword.

"Um..." Tidus said. "Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine Paine." He finished, gasping for air.

Yuna glared at him.

"Oh come on!" Tidus wheezed.

Yuna continued to glare.

"Fine... Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna Yuna ."

Tidus collapsed into a heap on the floor.

Meanwhile, Paine had snuck behind Rikku and was about to give her a solid whack on the head as means of a cure. However, Rikku telepathically sensed her intentions, and flung Paine into the lift, which Rikku telekinetically sent to the cabin and then turned off the lift's power, leaving Paine stuck.

"Rikku!" Yuna cried. Tidus was exhausted, Paine was stuck in the cabin... that left only Yuna.

"Sorry about this, cousin," she said, switching to White Mage and rushing to staff-whack Rikku.

Rikku teleported just before Yuna's staff clubbed her. The staff hit the wall, bounced off, and soundly whacked Yuna unconscious.

"There we go," said Rikku. She sighed. "I had hoped they'd take the news better." She sniffed the air. "Eww... brimstone!"

Suddenly, another Rikku bamfed onto the scene.

"Hey... you're me!" said Rikku.

"Or else you're me," said Rikku.

"But if I'm me, how can you be me?" Rikku asked.

"I'm your twin from another dimension," Rikku explained.

"Oh... that's pretty weird," said Rikku.

"Did I mention I'm your evil twin?" Rikku inquired.

"Well, no..." Rikku said, but before she could finish, Rikku had teleported behind Rikku and bopped her on the head with a book entitled The Ultimate X-Men Treasury.

Rikku sank to the ground as Rikku chuckled evilly, teleporting away.

---

Paine gave up trying to pound on the door and resorted to yelling at it in an attempt to convince it to cooperate. She had just stopped to take a breath when the lift opened.

There stood Rikku, devoid of sunglasses, wings, and freaky powers.

"I finally got the lift fixed," she said cheerily. "How'd you break it, anyways?"

"How did _I _break it?" Paine asked incredulously. The warrior sighed, and decided to count her blessings. At least Rikku was back to normal... for now.

And the book had been cast out of a window by Paine, before she had gotten to the matter of trying to get the lift to work.

But the book was not gone... not by a long shot. In fact, it had gone to haunt another world...

---

Sora twirled his Keyblade. He was bored, bored, bored. The Gummi ship had broken down, and Cid was repairing it, leaving Sora with nothing to do until...

_Hey! What's that?_

A book had suddenly appeared on the ground nearby. He picked it up.

"Hey... X-Men... well, it couldn't hurt to read it..."


End file.
